Recently I asked my Advanced Writing students at the university where I teach to define the word “passion” collaboratively within their small groups. A variety of definitions were given, all interesting and noteworthy. Then, individually, I asked them to describe their passion. The answers ranged from “cooking” to “sharing Jesus with others.” Next the students put me on the spot, asking, “What is your passion, Mrs. L”? I hemmed and hawed, mentioning reading and writing and books, and libraries, and other like things when it hit me that my passion was literacy in one form or another. Thus, the need to start this blog: to explore my passion.
On http://powerfulwomenreaders.wordpress.com I have written a few posts that are literacy related. The second post, written in March of 2016, discusses the attempts to improve literacy in the Alvin (Texas) area, specifically the planting of Little Free Libraries. The blog will eventually include a post on the Alvin Independent Book Bus and an interview with Debbie Nance of Readerbuzz, the Stevenson Elementary children’s librarian who got the LFL ball rolling and inspired me to ask for the birthday gift that has kept on giving. Generally, I will discuss/point out/argue, and maybe even rant over statistics and facts about literacy that need to be called to the attention of teachers, administrators, parents, and all who share a love of kids and teaching them to appreciate and even love reading and writing.
Come along on my journey and participate in this endeavor. Let your ideas and your voice be heard. I do not promise any miraculous “cures” or earthshaking results, but maybe child by child, reader by reader, we can make a difference.
Literacy and Me 
Reblogged this on blogging807.
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I am heartened by a couple of experiences regarding literacy that runs counter to the current beliefs. My dyslexic granddaughter who was still struggling to read with a reading age of 6/7 aged 11 has now, aged 13, managed to learn to read, more or less unaided. Except that she has had around her people who read for pleasure and engendered in her a love of story. So she continued to struggle and now reads fan fiction for pleasure using her yellow filtered glasses. She still gets a lot of words wrong and stumbles when reading aloud, but loves it. However, when I was teaching, it was dinned into us that if we didn’t have our children up and reading by the time they were 10, they proably were a lost cause. That’s wrong.
Developmental delay can be caused by all sorts of reasons, ranging from traumas caused by parents splitting up (a sadly common occurrance that I think is under-estimated by schools as a major issue in preventing children effectively learning) through to ill health and conditions like dyslexia, ADHD and autism. BUT they can be overcome if schools will take advantage of the other time when the brain reopens for learning and developmental progress – the teens. However, by then, children are often written off and wrapped up in their own frustration and failure. We should change that – emphasise the everyone gets there at their own speed and focus on what they CAN do – it’s how we all learn and the golden rule for teaching special needs. Everyone blossoms if they feel valued and that learning is an adventure – which did we take it for granted that school has to be such a gritted slog? It should be FUN!
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When I taught reading to children in grades 7 and 8 who could not read a lick, I found that undiagnosed dyslexics often found compensating techniques and learned to read on their own when they wanted to read badly enough (like reading the captions under Harleys in motorcycle magazines to see what kind of thingies the motors had. Acting out stories brought the written words to life, and before long the printed word had a meaning planted by movement and muscle memory. We were doing special ed techniques before we had special ed in our schools for learning disabled kids. When the teachers want the kiddos to learn badly enough and the kids want to read badly enough magic happens.
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Yes! Exactly! But all the admin and testing just messes up the momentum…
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